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4Cuture Grant

Below is information supplied to 4Culture in my application for a Heritage Site Specific grants. They awarded $15,000.

Project Summary

This project will result in a performance of live music and
spoken word at the Panama Hotel Tea Room. The venue capacity is 60 so the
performance will be repeated to accommodate a larger audience. Ideally, 8
performances would occur on Saturday evenings August 3, 10, 17, 24 and Sunday
afternoons August, 4, 11, 18 and 25. The maximum live audience would be 480.
The event will be recorded for promotional use and potential commercial sale.

Background

Jazz pianist Oscar Holden (1887-1969) was a major talent in Seattle’s
musical history. He is pictured on the cover of Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle by Paul de
Barros. Holden’s music also plays a primary role in the historic novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jamie Ford. But the sound of his music is buried deep in the subconscious of
unrecorded memories.

The Panama Hotel is an important location in
Ford’s novel where Japanese families stored intimate tokens in the basement
while they were interred during WWII. One token was a fictional record by Oscar
Holden with a saxophone solo by a character from the novel. Holden actually
performed nearby at the Black Elks on Jackson
Street.

This project will mine rich vein of Seattle’s
jazz history along Jackson
Street and the basement
of the Panama Hotel to create new music inspired by Oscar Holden that will be
performed in the Tea Room at the Panama Hotel. The information gleaned from
research will create scenes through which to weave a new musical narrative.

Collaboration

Authors Jamie Ford and Paul de Barros, and pianist Deems
Tsutakawa agreed to participate with me for this project. I am reaching out to
the Holden family and the Northwest African American Museum.

Previous Experience

This project will be developed and presented in a manner
similar to my previous sold out concerts of jazz chamber music inspired by
Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) I find it interesting that
Villa-Lobos and Holden lived during the same period in history.

Another previous project with similar attributes to this
proposal was the Earshot Jazz Voice and Vision concert at the SeattleAsianArt
Museum. I meditated
in the sculpture court and imagined the statues coming to life and speaking
with me. I found poetry related to animated statues and composed music on the
theme of art coming to life. The performance included 3 musicians, a dancer,
video, and recorded environmental sounds.

Creative Process

I will
begin by identifying, reading, listening and interviewing every feasible
source of relevant information.

From
this I will construct a list of scenes and corresponding musical ideas.
The music will be arranged for an ensemble that includes saxophone, piano,
bass and other instruments inspired by the research.

The
music compositions (scores and parts) will be published with notation
software and rendered by MIDI
playback to audio files that will be used for rehearsal and promotion.

I will
construct a narrative thread to connect the scenes. Additional information
will be published in a program.

The
performance will be rehearsed and refined over the course of performances.

Reminiscing in Swingtime: Japanese
Americans in American Popular Music, George Yoshida, National Japanese
American Historical Society, 1997

Seattle on the Puget Sound: An Old Love Story About a YoungCity,
Bill Kossen and Dave Holden, 2006

Seattle’s International District: The
Making of a Pan-Asian American Community, Doug Chin, International
Examiner Press, 2009

Sonic Boom: The History of Northwest
Rock, from “Louis Louis” to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Peter Blecha,
Backbeat Books, 2009

Work Samples

The musical work samples can be heard at http://soundcloud.com/steve-griggs.
All three samples are excerpts from a sold-out 2009 performance at Good
Shepherd Chapel of Villa-Lobos inspired music arranged for jazz chamber
ensemble. The titles are “Mazurka-Choro,” “Vocalize #2” and “Alma Brasiliera.”
Please listen to them in that order.

The first jazz record I heard was Cannonball Adderley’s Live at the Club. Music laughed and
cried while the audience clapped and shouted encouragement. The experience of
that feeling became my calling.

For 37 years I studied, performed, composed, recorded and
taught music. A peak experience came in 1998 when I recorded with drummer Elvin
Jones. Before the recording his wife said, “The music may be good or bad.
What’s important is the feeling.” Sage advice – craft should be subservient to
authentic expression.

At a concert of 19th century Spanish guitar music
I recognized that authenticity again – an abstract expression of pain and joy.
I also heard the same emotional warmth echoed in 20th century
Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. I envisioned a bridge between the
feeling in his music and jazz.

As I developed the Villa-Lobos inspired concert program in
2009, writing became important to me. Each musical piece became a scene. I
wrote a narrative thread to weave the music into a larger story for the
audience. Until this concert, I attempted to tell stories exclusively through
the abstract language of music. But writing gave me tools to communicate more
directly – to meld history with music.

In 2010 I began writing for a Seattle
magazine, Earshot Jazz. Monthly
profiles of artists, venues, books, and concerts prompted me to find new source
material and compose a compelling narrative of Seattle
history. Now I relish the opportunity to describe music to a wide audience from
a musician’s perspective.

Resume

Musical Compositions/Arrangements

84
Compositions

30
Arrangements of standards including 9 for vocalist

25 Arrangements
of Villa-Lobos scores

6
Settings of poetry to music (Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, e.e. cummings,
James Washington)